


Fantasies

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Class Differences, Class Fantasies, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Mild Kink, Scars, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Oliver is naked and lying before him, Diggle likes to think that money doesn't matter. </p><p>Also includes what Diggle thinks about broader economic problems in Starling City. </p><p>Written for Kink Bingo for the class fantasies square.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fantasies

They’re in the sub-basement of the building that Oliver bought. They sweep a thousand-dollar bow and a dozen arrows off the table as they climb on top of it, pulling each other’s clothes off. Oliver turns off his phone so they won’t be bothered by a call from his mother, who signs each and every one of Diggle’s paychecks. 

Oliver smiles up at him, waiting for Diggle to make his move like he can’t imagine anyone would want to say no.

At the moment, Diggle can’t imagine why anyone would either.

Oliver is lying naked on a concrete table, his body tensing with anticipation as Diggle’s hand rests softly on his chest. He is stripped, his scars are bared, and he is thinking of nothing but getting Diggle’s body closer to his.

In these moments, Diggle likes to pretend that money doesn’t matter.

~~

In some ways, being Oliver’s bodyguard was nothing like what he expected.

In other ways, it was exactly what he expected. He knew from the moment he was hired that he was going to be looking after a young man who has been told his entire life that he was destined to be a master of his universe, and that those who cried foul simply didn’t understand the realities of how the world works.

Diggle believed in Oliver. He believed in the mission that Oliver has chosen to share with him. But sometimes he wondered if growing up around buildings stamped “Queen Industries” had given Oliver the sense that this city really did belong to him. Oliver had no question about the fact that he could single-handedly shape a city’s destiny, that his power and his benevolence were hands of righteousness, scrubbing evil from the land.

The army had made Diggle feel the same thing once. For a while at least, though not through his whole tour.

So it’s not that Diggle judged him, not really. And at least Oliver had a little self-awareness. He knew that their project was morally gray at best. He just didn’t know what else to do. And doing nothing wasn’t an option.

This was something else that he and Oliver had in common. And they really did have a lot in common.

There were a few things, however, that would always be different. The way that Oliver never worried if a car or motorcycle got trashed. The way that Oliver would walk into the most exclusive areas of Starling City dressed like a bum and still get treated like a prince. The way that a state of the art, lightweight, wearable shielding, worth tens of thousands of dollars, appeared in their workspace. Actually, Oliver bought 10 of them. (When Diggle enlisted, he wasn’t given body armor, so he had to buy his own. His family helped pay for it, and the armor was heavy as hell.) 

And he knew that Oliver’s work was important. He went after the drug dealers but also the corporate titans who were secretly dealing arms or using violence to get their way. He went after the people threatening the lives of the lawyers and small business owners and community workers and activists who were fighting to make the city better. People like that – people whose strength was building things anew – couldn’t get anywhere with thugs running the city. So they needed people like Oliver. And people like Diggle. To clear the way. 

But Diggle also knew that the reason the Glades became the Glades wasn’t just the criminals. The criminals came because they knew that there was a huge swath of land full of people whose voice didn’t count. The corrupt landlords came for that reason too, and the loan sharks, the payday advance places, the repossessors and everyone else who added to the tax on being poor. It was why the grocery stores and libraries left, and why the city said it was helping everyone by closing half the schools. 

There are people – really good people – who are working to change all of that. But they’re just going to get killed or scared or too damn burnt out to keep working unless someone cuts off the neverending supply of violence and greed, two beasts that always look after their own interests.

Diggle knew that he and Oliver weren’t exactly do-gooders. But they were the ones standing between the do-gooders and the bullets aimed at all of them.

Sometimes, Diggle wondered if Oliver felt the same way about why the city is the way it is. If he understood at all why Diggle snarked about Oliver’s contributions to gentrification, or why Diggle always mentioned the defense contractors who made a fortune off of his work. Or even why Diggle insisted on paying for coffee exactly half of the time.

He never brought it up, though. Honestly, it didn’t matter.

If he and Oliver were trying to rebuild the city together, they might have needed to hash it out. Agree on what’s really tearing the city down -- the evil pieces of shit in Oliver’s book or the whole entire history that basically handed over the city to those evil pieces of shit.

But they’re not in the business of making something new. They’re in the business of cleaning out the old.

And that much they can agree on. 

~~

Diggle likes to tell himself that money doesn’t matter. 

Not all of the time. 

Only in moments like this, when their bodies are moving against each other in a half-dark room. Clothes strewn on the floor, the smell of sweat permeating the air. The feel of Oliver’s scars beneath his fingertips, their raised roughness, reminding Diggle that Oliver is his brother in arms, that Oliver has things he needs to forget even more than Diggle does. 

In these moments, nothing matters. Not money. Not how they were raised, not any of their other differences. Not the hardness of the table beneath them, bruising them with every move. Not the fact that their mission would probably get them both killed someday. 

When they are done, Diggle moves his hand so he can lean down to Oliver’s lips, to kiss him slow and hungry and rough. His hand scrapes against the edge of the table, and Diggle tells himself that he doesn’t care.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Fantasies by storiesfortravellers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/940732) by [fire_juggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_juggler/pseuds/fire_juggler)




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